The Mega Man Legacy Collection is not the first time Capcom reissued and repackaged the initial six Mega Man titles, but it might be the most precise. Capcom and Digital Eclipse intend to preserve Mega Man’s initial outings just as they were on the NES, complete with slowdown and flicker and various filters. It’s an important step in game archiving and presentation, and the press releases and interviews liken it to the Criterion Collection and its artful packaging of notable movies. And Michael Bay’s Armageddon.

That’s a close comparison, but the Mega Man Legacy Collection lacks one essential piece of a Criterion set: a long and possibly misguided explanation of a film’s cultural importance. Capcom plans to release a physical version of the Legacy Collection next year, so there’s still time to outfit its instruction manual with an essay about Mega Man’s inner meanings.